Rishi Sunak’s announcement that the government will increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP has been warmly welcomed, but how much is it really going to transform the UK’s military? Former armed services minister James Heappey was quick to scotch expectations this morning when he said it wouldn’t necessarily be enough to reverse falls in the size of the Army, Navy or Royal Air Force – the money could quite easily disappear simply in upgrading equipment. Nor is there anything particularly novel about the Prime Minister’s announcement: Boris Johnson made the same promise – to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by by 2030 – at the Nato summit in Madrid in 2022, shortly before his defenestration by cabinet colleagues.
Downing Street has suggested the money would come from shrinking the civil service
A good dollop of the extra spending will be required simply to replace weapons and other military equipment which has been given to Ukraine over the past couple of years. In
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